Emerging tech

Researchers reprogram brain cells into heart cells

Being able to regenerate injured heart cells would give physicians the tools to repair and replace damaged tissue and ultimately save lives. So while researchers have spent more than a decade trying to reprogram cell types in general, changing them into heart cells has been a sort of holy grail.

Now, a team at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has done just that--and is the first to directly convert a non-heart cell type into a heart cell via RNA transfer. In fact, the researchers reprogrammed both an astrocyte (a star-shaped brain cell) and a fibroblast (a skin cell) into heart cells.

"What's new about this approach for heart-cell generation is that we directly converted one cell type to another using RNA without an intermediate step," says James Eberwine, a pharmacology professor at Penn, in a news release.

Because a cell's signature is characterized by messenger RNAs (mRNAs), which act as a sort of blueprint for making a protein, the researchers introduced an excess amount of heart cell mRNAs into the host cells and let the new, abundant population essentially take over the smaller, indigenous one. This new population then directed DNA in the host nucleus to actually change the cell's RNA populations to the new heart cell ("tCardiomyocyte").

Ultimately, the heart-cell mRNAs are translated into heart-cell proteins, which influence gene expression in the host so that heart-cell genes are turned on and heart-cell-enriched proteins are made. The chain of events may be lengthy, but the process is direct.

The team's approach, called Transcriptome Induced Phenotype Remodeling, has been fine-tuned in Eberwine's lab in recent years.

While it may be a way off, the team says that reprogramming a patient's cells to be heart cells would enable personalized screening for efficacy of drug treatments and new drugs. It reports its findings online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.… Read more

'Social X-ray specs' help us read emotions

Dr. Cal Lightman is about to be out of a job. The micro-expression expert central to the TV show Lie to Me could soon be joined by legions of fellow human lie detectors--but instead of squinting intently Lightman-style, they'll be wearing high-tech specs.

So hopes electrical engineer Rosalind Picard at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, who recently shared a pair with journalist Sally Adee for the magazine New Scientist.

In her interview, Adee describes the sensation of wearing the glasses, which featured a blinking red light alerting her to the general confusion and utter boredom of … Read more

How a Google+ gap keeps me on Facebook

I've been using Google+ a lot the last few days, and I like it--especially the circles idea that lets me put people I might want to address into specific groups.

Circles are a lot more nuanced than the all-or-nothing broadcast technology I'm used to with Facebook and Twitter. But unless Google figures a way to fix one particular shortcoming, circles don't fix a problem I've had for years: the social networking tension between personal and professional use.

Here it is, in brief: I want to offer public commentary on the tech world through Google+, but I don't want my ceaseless techno-talk to clog friends' and family's Google+ streams.

It was for this reason that last year I unplugged my Twitter stream from Facebook and this year set up my separate professional Facebook page.

I'm willing to cut Google, Twitter, and everybody else with an online service some slack here. It's genuinely hard to create a product that can withstand the duality of people's different roles. Most of us have grown accustomed to having separate home and work e-mail addresses, for example. Facebook offers an ability to run linked personal and professional personas.

I'd hoped that Google, which explicitly boasts about Google+'s ability to handle social networking with both your boss and your family, would have handled the situation better. So far I think it's got the best start, at least, with circles.

Circles let me specify a certain audience to receive a message, which is great for a targeted note to coworkers, close friends, or people who live nearby. But my targeted messages--about my weekend family trip, say--are very different than my public messages about subjects such as Web browsers.

The only sensible way to handle the work-related messages is to post them publicly. I want people to read them, after all, and I certainly don't have time to manage some constantly expanding circle of people I presumed would be interested.

If they're public messages, though, I would be burdening my family and friends with the controversy of WebGL security when all they wanted to hear about was the adventure with the inebriated hooligan in Dover. … Read more

MIT smartphone clip-on detects cataracts in minutes

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on an inexpensive way to use smartphones to quickly detect early-stage cataracts, the clouding of the eye lens that is the leading cause of blindness worldwide.

Developed by Media Lab Camera Culture group director Ramesh Raskar and colleagues, the Catra system is made of off-the-shelf components. Users peer through an eyepiece that slides onto a smartphone or other smart device like an iPod Touch, and they view lines displayed on the screen.

When the lines appear cloudy, the user presses a button. In that way, the device scans the lens of the eye to create a map of the cloudy areas, which are produced by proteins clumping together.

Identifying the position, size, shape, and density of the clouds, Catra can produce a diagnosis of cataracts in minutes. Check out the promo video below.

The idea is that Catra could be used in the developing world, where few have access to the expensive slit lamps and clinicians used to diagnose the disorder. That could lead to earlier detection of cataracts and better treatment results following surgery. … Read more

IBM leaps two hurdles for next-gen memory

IBM has solved two related problems with phase-change memory and now says the fast next-generation data-storage technology will be ready for use in 2016 in servers.

In a paper for the IEEE International Memory Workshop, Big Blue researchers describe how they squeezed two bits of data into each phase-change memory cell rather than just one. Though that's not the first incarnation of this idea, called multilevel storage, the researchers said they've made it practical by sidestepping a problem called "drift" that otherwise causes data errors the longer data is stored.

The engineering advancements help overcome significant barriers in introducing a technology that holds the potential to significantly transform computer designs. Phase-change memory (PCM), could snuggle up alongside conventional dynamic random access memory (DRAM) to improve computer performance in ways that flash memory so far can't. It's not as fast as DRAM, but IBM says it's 100 times faster at reading and writing data than flash memory, its chief competitor today.

IBM's PCM technology isn't yet ready for real-world use, but the improvements in multilevel storage and drift tolerance means the technology should be competitive in 2016 for the server applications IBM has in mind, said Haris Pozidis, one of the IBM Research paper authors.

"Our main application, being in the server business, is enterprise storage and memory applications," Pozidis said. "In the consumer market, the most important attribute is cost per bit. In enterprise applications, the most important attributes are speed, because [PCM will be] sitting close to the main memory where there are lots of transactions per second, and the endurance of device. We must make sure the device can write and read many numbers of times." … Read more

60GHz tech promises wireless docking, USB, HDMI

Every now and again, the rules for how to build a personal computer change. One of those moments may arrive next year with a high-speed wireless technology that could let people link tablets with big-screen TVs or dock laptops when arriving in the office.

The technology, which uses the 60GHz band of radio spectrum and is designed to transfer as much as 7 gigabits of data per second, matches what many wired connections provide, either inside a computer chassis or through the profusion of ports that perforate laptop sides. A group called the WiGig Alliance is developing it, and the … Read more

ReFuel races spur electric-car innovation (audio slideshow)

Engineers searching for ways to redefine the American car, moving away from gasoline engines and toward cleaner battery-powered electric transportation, had a chance to put their designs to the test this weekend on a big-time track, the MAZDA Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif. In the coming years, production standards for battery-management systems and charging systems will emerge, and today, these innovators are experimenting with what works and what doesn't, searching for the best new methods with which to manufacture the next generation of vehicles. The ReFuel Clean Power Motorsports Event, now in its third year, gives electric-car builders … Read more

Apple applies for photo-correcting patent

Apple applied for a patent today for technology to use a mobile device's orientation sensors to help correct common photo problems.

One claim in the patent application involves using gyroscopes, compasses, or accelerometers to determine a device's orientation, then using that data to fix problems such as a tilt that would keep a horizontal line from being level.

A related claim involves a correction to distortion that can be caused when a camera isn't held vertically--for example when a view looking up makes the parallel vertical lines of a building converge. Here, a distance measurement to the subject could be factored in, too.

A photo could be corrected either after it was taken or on the fly as it's being taken.

The application is a new twist on hardware fixes for common photography problems. Modern digital cameras can move sensors or lens elements to counteract camera shake, and cameras or comptuer software can correct optical shortcomings of lenses. Start-up Lytro even hopes focusing errors can be avoided with light-field technology that lets people focus shots after they're taken. Smile detection technology can snap a photo only when you see the whites of their teeth, and face detection helps set exposure and focus.

The iPhone 4, with a backside-illumination sensor that's more sensitive than conventional models, is highly regarded as phone cameras go, and it's highly used, too, topping Flickr's camera usage charts. No doubt Apple would like to help its customers avoid those embarrassingly tilted oceans.

Now all we need is technology to ensure camera subjects look as healthy, vivacious, and beautiful as all the people in Apple's promotional illustrations. … Read more

New saliva test reveals a person's approximate age

A new saliva test developed by geneticists at the University of California, Los Angeles, reveals a person's age within five years, a finding that could have many applications in medicine, at crime scenes, and more.

"With just a saliva sample, we can accurately predict a person's age without knowing anything else about them," says principal investigator Dr. Eric Vilain, a professor of human genetics, pediatrics and urology, in a UCLA news release.

The team's research, published online this week in the Public Library of Science's PLoS One journal, focuses on methylation, a process by … Read more

Start-up Lytro tries refocusing camera industry

A start-up called Lytro hopes to revolutionize photography by selling a camera later this year that lets people focus their images after the fact.

The technique used is called light-field photography, and it's been an active area of research for years in the optics realm. With it, lens and image sensor technology doesn't focus on a particular subject, but instead gathers light information from different directions; processing after the fact means different aspects of the scene can be recreated.

Lytro has been working on the technology for years--I interviewed Chief Executive Ren Ng three years ago when his … Read more